Sometimes limbo is a tolerable place to be stuck

So over the weekend I was feeling positive and really embracing my language learning, I might go as far as saying I was enjoying learning french. Maybe because it, along with walking the dog, was such a big distraction from what was happening and was the only thing I had control of. I had a little blimp on the Sunday afternoon when I had some pains in my tummy, maybe twinges is a better word, but I had them all day so I was panicking already that it was the cancer spreading, and I had a brief panic/sad moment and luckily Ellen was there to comfort me.

Monday 1 February, working like normal and pretending nothing is wrong with everyone I speak too. A few people at work know and they have been great and apart from that I just wanted to be normal so cracked on as if nothing was wrong. In the afternoon I started to get nervy and apprehensive for what was to come the following day.

Tuesday 2 February and Ellen drives me to the IVF clinic in Cambridge again, and to make things simple for me I’ve just said I’ll tick each thing off and the pressure in my mind can ease a little. First tick to achieve was the simplest, I had to go make a deposit at the clinic and that was it, no paperwork to fill out this time, just in and out. Back into Wembley I go for the second time, not quite like how I wanted to grace the hallowed turf but positives and all that, following on from the win last time, I was expecting another win today!

Okay; we’re done, in the car and back to Peterborough for a quick lunch and a quick walk with the dog, my stomach is really filled with butterflies now, Peterborough Hospital here we come!

Next ticks to achieve was the MRSA test and more bloods being taken; and with Ellen’s help I managed to find the right department and got myself self in. I’m sat there waiting, clammy hands and nervous, when I hear another block come to the receptionist and check in ‘I’m here for my pre-op MRSA test’ and this was the first reassuring moment when I thought okay it’s not just me that needs this doing, until that point although Ellen had explained it to me it felt like it was something being done because of my situation and me. Little things, but it instantly reassured me!

‘Daniel Bratcher’ oh I’m up; I follow the nurse into the room and he hands me a swab ‘just up both nostrils please’ I made sure I went far enough up but not enough so it was uncomfortable (I’d soon find out what that felt like!) and handed it back. He then pulls out another swab and asks me to do the groins. I was thinking yeah this is nice and easy, boom another tick for the day.

‘Which arm?’ Ahhh I’d forgotten about the blood test, ‘errr let’s go right arm’. For some reason since Thursday and the whirlwind day, my left arm which had bloods take from was stiff, sore and I was unable to sleep on my left side due to the ache; it was almost as if through my shock news, I had tensed up so much that a nerve had trapped, great!

So bloods; I look away as normal procedure (I hate needles) and I’ve noticed there’s so many different ways that they take blood, there probably shouldn’t be, but some hurt and some don’t. Today’s nurse was struggling, I felt that ‘just a scratch’ three or four times and I was tempted to look to help out! ‘All done’, okay, next tick in the book and he hands me a pee sample tub for surgery Friday.

Ellen picks me up and we drive round to the drive thru Covid test station, we pull up and Ellen warns me it’s really uncomfortable and I’m sat there like well the other nurse let me stick it up my nose myself, it wasn’t too bad...boy was I wrong...the nurse came out and rammed the first swab to the back to my throat ‘say ahhh’ ‘ah....’ and she swabs further, not great but bearable. ‘Okay now I will do the nostrils, just relax’ and she rummages in my nose and gets right up in there, my eyes are watering and it feels like she’s itching my brain, the whole medical cotton bud had pretty much disappeared up my nose! If anything can scare you to taking a lockdown serious, the Covid test alone is enough for me. All done another tick, finally we can go home and then just await my scan results, they said anytime from 4 so we have a couple of hours to kill and walk the dog.

Get to 4 and I’m carrying my phone around with me but with every minute that passes adds to the nerves and anxiety. I sit on the edge of the sofa for 2 hours, as I just can’t get comfortable knowing what’s coming, even though I know the outcome already, cancer and surgery and possibly chemo. We reach 6 and the realisation sets in ‘what if it’s spread?!’ and that just leads to more anxiety in my head. We get to 6.30 and I give the specialist nurse number a call to chase up as I couldn’t bare going through the night and finding out the next day and I finally get a call back around 7pm. ‘It hasn’t spread to any organs but there were two swollen lymph nodes in your pelvis that we need to keep an eye on’. Relief, so my two lymph nodes of concern were just reaching 1.3mm in size and 1.5mm in size would trigger alarm bells to them, so I’m close to the limit, however they said right now it could just be the body fighting the cancer and they have swollen naturally to fight that off. So they can’t really advise any further on that or what will happen after surgery, but after chatting to Ellen and Grace, I’m reassured that as a prognosis that’s about as good as it can get (with having no swollen lymph nodes best case scenario). Another tick, with one more to get; telling the families. I had my phone in my hand ready to ring my mum for near on an hour, I just couldn’t pluck up the courage as I know it would be devastating for her, and if it wasn’t for lockdown I’d be able to tell her in person and reassure her. I went over in my head near on 100 times, 100 different ways of saying ‘mum I’ve got cancer’ each one didn’t work for me, I was stuck in limbo and right now it was a tolerable place to be.